Marathon's for masses despite Ethiopians' buzz

Published 6:30 am, Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Deriba Merga of Ethiopia celebrates as he crosses the finish line in first place at the 2009 Houston Marathon on Sunday.

Deriba Merga of Ethiopia celebrates as he crosses the finish line in first place at the 2009 Houston Marathon on Sunday.

Photo: Eric S. Swist, AP

Marathon's for masses despite Ethiopians' buzz

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For most of its 37 years, the Houston Marathon has placed far more emphasis on the masses than the smattering of elite runners who attend. The idea has been to make the multitudes who run the 26.2 miles in 4-plus hours go home as happy as those who push the limits of human performance.

But Karpas is the first to admit the goose bumps generated by what Deriba Merga wanted to accomplish Sunday and by what he and fellow Ethiopian Teyba Erkesso did accomplish can be addictive.

“We’ve reached new heights,” Karpas said. ”I think we’ve established ourselves as an event that’s head and shoulders above most U.S. marathons. The feedback I’m getting from other race officials who attended, the public and participants is that Houston has really elevated its game.”

Merga brings star power

Merga’s course (and Texas) record of 2 hours, 7 minutes, 52 seconds might not have caused the shock waves the 2:05 he tried to run would have, would have won in New York and come close in Boston and Chicago in 2008. Erkesso’s record 2:24:18 is faster than the times for the most recent Boston and New York women’s winners, trailing only the 2:23:56 world-record-holder Paula Radcliffe posted in Chicago.

“To have Merga’s name in our record books is a huge plus for us,” Karpas said. “I’ll go on the record and predict he’ll run 2:05 or close in the next year or so. He has that kind of talent.”

Merga’s stated goal for Houston had been to blow away Khalid Khannouchi’s 2:05:42, the fastest time ever in the U.S. and a world record when he did it in 1999.

“All eyes were on Houston because of him,” Karpas said, “and for 18 miles, he was running at that pace.”

But, having worn out his “rabbits,” Merga was on his own the rest of the way into a slight headwind and tapered off. Still, nobody in the marathon hierarchy was too bummed out after the 20-year-old course record fell by 2 minutes, 12 seconds. Such a dramatic drop and won’t likely be duplicated in the near future unless sponsoring Chevron, already on board for the next four years, decides to throw a lot more money into the kitty.

Purses affect draw

The aforementioned marathons that out-rank Houston’s offer far larger purses and have much bigger budgets.

“At least triple,” Karpas said. “We’re getting a lot for our money.”

The icing for Karpas on Monday was the positive feedback coming in from rank-and-file contestants.

“I’m still on a high from yesterday,” he said. “I’ve been hearing so many stories about what an awesome time our runners had on the course, about how enthusiastic the fans were … all the bands … everything, even the chamber-of-commerce day we got. There’s no doubt it was the best Chevron Houston Marathon ever.”

But perfection is elusive. The chip system, which records official finishing times for posterity while permitting friends and family members to keep track of runners on the course, broke down for a handful of them.

Karpas said the problem appeared to involve “less than 100” of the nearly 23,000 runners, whose results were recorded incorrectly or left out of the final data base.

“To make a long story short,” he said, “the vendor failed. But we’re doing everything we can to rectify the situation, and we’ll definitely get it fixed. We understand the frustration of the participants who have been affected. We’re as frustrated as they are, if not more so. It’s very disappointing anytime we have technology mishaps because we rely on outside experts to provide services we can’t.”

Clean bill of health

From a medical standpoint, things couldn’t have gone much better, marathon medical director Dr. John Cianga reported. Several persons did need to be transported to hospitals, including one with cardiac issues, but Cianga said he had checked on each of them Monday morning and “they were doing fine.”

Interestingly, the weather grew slightly cooler after 9 a.m. and, Ciango observed, runners finishing the full marathon seemed, as a group, to be feeling better than the half-marathoners. The change came much too late, though, to help propel Merga as fast as he and everyone else wanted him to go.

MARATHON MASTERS

Houston’s marathon course is now officially the second-fastest record-quality course in the U.S. behind Chicago’s, based on the times posted by Deriba Merga and women’s champion Teyba Erkesso.

A record-quality course, race director Brant Kotch explains, requires that the start and finish lines be separated by no more than 1 percent of 26.2 miles, which eliminates Boston and New York.

How Houston’s course records compare to those at the biggest marathons around the world: